Comfort and Joy
by QueenY C
Summary: Sometimes we find strength in our darkest moments. Sometimes we find it in the people we love. A one-shot in the Heartbeat Universe.


_Story: Comfort and Joy_

_Author: QueenyC_

_Disclaimer: I don't own Bones or any of the charters or locations affiliated with it. If I did, I'd be doing more with them then posting stories in fan fiction._

_A/N: Hello everyone. Another one-shot in the Heartbeat Universe. This one is a lot sadder than anything I've posted so far. I think it's all the rain we've been having her in Georgia, but it's got me feeling melancholy. Please enjoy and leave me a review!_

**Comfort and Joy**

Parker Booth was more than a little tired of the suffocating pressure in his chest which had been with him for three days now now. His father's house was unusually quiet despite the rather large number of people who had congregated in it to pay respects.

Wakes were stupid, Parker decided and made a mental note to insist that nobody hold one for him when he died. He knew that when he was found, probably by his stepmom, he'd be asked gently but expectantly to return downstairs to mingle with the many people who'd attended his great-grandfather's funeral and wanted to show their support. But Parker was fairly certain that none of them, save possibly Angela, the sensitive artist that she was, could possibly understand the pain and confusion he was enduring. And, frankly, he had no desire to speak to anyone who wasn't feeling as miserable as he was.

His dad had been stoic and quiet since they'd gotten the call on Friday. Hank "Pops" Booth had suffered a myocardial infarction (Parker had learned that science was as good a shield from pain as any) and had died suddenly en route to the hospital via ambulance. That was it. There were no goodbyes. There was no indication that they'd run out of time.

The previous Monday Pops had celebrated his 90th birthday. They'd made a big show for the affair. Bones, in her usual way, had gone above and beyond and decorated the retirement home's dining room and ordered a special cake from some famous bakery in Baltimore that Hank had once claimed he'd like to visit. They'd enjoyed good old-fashioned grilled burgers and hot dogs Fourth of July style and Bones had made her famous macaroni. Joy finally beat Pops at dominoes for the first time and had danced around the room crowing about her victory for hours. It had been a great day. And five days later he'd been gone.

Now, it was Monday again, a very different Monday than the last had been, and after putting his great-grandfather into the ground Parker just wanted everyone to go away so he could close his eyes and will the ache in his chest to vanish.

There was a light tap on his bedroom door and Parker resisted the urge to groan as he sat up from the prone position he'd adopted across his made bed, propping up on his elbows as the door creaked open and a red-faced Joy stepped in.

"Can I sit with you," She asked softly and, always a sucker for his baby sister's pouty lips, he nodded and scooted over a bit to make room on the bed.

Like Parker, Joy was still in her funeral attire, a satin black dress with matching, buckled shoes. Her hair had been pulled back into a neat clasp earlier that morning, but Parker noticed that she'd since taken it down and allowed her acres of auburn hair to fall down her shoulders.

"Where are the twins," Paker asked of his sister's best friends. The oldest Hodgins children, Ayden and Jude, were usually permanently attached to Joy's hip.

Joy shrugged uncharacteristically apathetic. "Everyone is starting to leave. I think they don't know what to say," she sighed after a moment.

Parker had to remind himself that Joy was not your average seven-year-old as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her tighter into his side.

"I don't know what to say, either," she confided after a minute, looking up at him with doeful eyes so like her mother's. "Everybody is sad."

"It's sad when someone dies," Parker shrugged in agreement.

"Do you think Pops went to Heaven?"

Parker nodded. "Do you?"

Joy looked thoughtful for several moments, weighing her answer like she did everything and chewing her lip. "Yes," she said finally. "Father Scott says you go to Heaven if you've been good and faithful and confessed all your sins. And Pops was good, right?"

"Pops was very good," Parker promised.

"Did he have a happy life?"

Parker grinned remembering Sunday afternoons in the park and a wheelchair race in the retirement home halls. He remembered prayers before every meal and candid discussions about faith with Bones. He remembered the look on his great-grandfather's face the first time he was handed Joy, more a bundle of blankets than a baby, and the tears in his eyes five years later when Bones and his dad finally got around to getting married.

"Definitely," he answered.

"So then...shouldn't we all be glad," Joy asked softly. "If Pops had a good life and now he's in Heaven with God? Shouldn't that make us happy?"

It was an innocent and honest question Parker knew and he grinned at the overwhelming rush of release that it gave him. "You're pretty smart, Squirt," he told her affectionately, finally feeling the lump in his throat recede, the weight on his chest lessen.

Joy shrugged. "Dad says its genetic," she dismissed, "But you didn't answer my question."

Parker smiled. "I think we should be happy, and we will be. But first, we have to be a little sad because someone important to us can't be with us now."

"So we're sad because we have to say goodbye, like when Mommy cries before Daddy takes work trips?"

"Exactly," Parker nodded, wondering at how comforting his little sister was making his own heart lighter.

"I guess that makes sense," Joy nodded after some consideration.

"Parker," his stepmother's voice sounded from the doorway with a gentle knock, "Have you seen your sister?"

"In here, Mom," Joy answered for him. Parker watched as Bones mirrored her daughters previous stance, her curious face preceding the rest of her body into his bedroom.

"Everyone is about gone," she told them gently, a level of understanding in her voice that Parker took gratefully. "I wondered if you two would come sit with your father while I get dinner ready?"

"Is Daddy okay," Joy asked with a pouty lip.

Parker studied his stepmother carefully as she gave her daughter a sad smile and said honestly, "Not right now, but he will be. He is just missing Pops. We all are," she added softly and Parker was aware of the pain in her own inflection.

"But we'll see him when we get to Heaven," Joy said with innocently raised eyebrows. Parker flinched, aware that, despite the leaps and bounds she'd made in social situations, sometimes Bones just said the wrong things. She surprised him however when she walked into the room, wrapped her arms around Joy and Parker's shoulders and crushed them to her chest in a tight hug.

"I hope you're right, Joy," she said gently.

"I usually am," Joy said confidently, causing matching grins to break out on Parker and Bones' faces. Without another word, Joy slid off the edge of Parker's bed and made her way out into the hall, presumably to search out her father and cheer him up too.

***~BB~***

"Bones," Booth sighed, "Baby, please come to bed."

Brennan held up her hand and motioned for silence, pressing her ear to the bedroom door. "I thought I heard movement down the hall."

"Probably just Joy crawling in bed with Parker. She's been doing that when it's his weekend," Booth sighed.

His wife frowned at him, concern heavy in her eyes. "Should that worry me," she asked him, coming back to the bed and crawling beneath the covers to snuggle up to his side.

"I'm just glad she's got a big brother to crawl in bed with so that I've got you to myself," Booth replied, hoping to inject some levity into the heavy air of their bedroom. He knew he'd been surly and stoic for several days now and it was only after the funeral and wake that he was slowly starting to feel the rays of light in his life again. He felt like a world-class asshole for having allowed Brennan to shoulder all the burden lately. She hid it well, she'd always been good at that, but he could see the strain in her blue eyes, the barely concealed pain and concern written there for him.

"How are you holding up, huh," he asked her gently, pulling her tightly into the circle of his arms and brushing his hands through her silky hair.

"I'm fine," she told him dismissively, as if she thought she had no right to feel otherwise.

"You look beat," he suggested.

"I'm a bit tired, yes," she admitted.

"Well, you handled pretty much everything," He sighed, guilt making his stomach churn. "I reckon you should be tired."

"Hank outlined to me very specifically what he would like for his final arrangements years ago. I was simply carrying out his wishes," She assured him.

"That sounds like Pops, he was always prepared," Booth sighed.

"He was a great man, Booth," his wife told him gently, running her fingers down his neck comfortingly. "If I were even inclined to believe in Heaven, it would be to give Hank a beautiful place to live throughout eternity."

Booth felt tears pool in the corners of his eyes at her gentle words. She really was an incredible woman. Not only had she handled all arrangements and fielded condolence calls for the past three days, she'd been his rock too. When he felt like he was breaking down, he'd feel her hand slip into his, when he couldn't say one more 'thanks for coming' he'd found her asking him to check on the children, when he'd stood in the cemetery watching the man who'd been a father to him lowered into the ground, she'd stepped into his side and offered her warmth.

"What did I ever do to deserve you, hmm? How did I get so lucky," Booth sighed, pressing his face into her hair and inhaling her scent like a balm to his soul.

"It's not about deserving or luck, Booth," Brennan told him gently. "You and I are connected, different sides of the same coin. We complete each other. That's why I'm here."

"You definitely complete me, Bones," Booth told her honestly. "I don't know how I would've gotten through all of this without you there beside me, helping the kids and making all the plans. I'm lost without you."

Brennan smiled gently, "Booth, I can't say that I'll be here forever because eternity isn't quantifiable and obviously mortality is a realistic inevitability. But I can promise that for as long as I'm able, I'll be here for you to lean on. And I'll lean on you too. That's what we do. We're partners."

"In that case," Booth grinned his first smile in days, "I love you, partner."

"I love you too, Booth," Brennan said readily, resting her head onto his chest and tracing vague patterns onto his stomach. "Will you be okay?"

Booth smiled again, wider this time, and felt the slow process of healing begin. "As long as I've got you, I'll be fine."


End file.
